


Love’s Bright Dream… (and Silver Bay Resort and Spa)

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Eating, Embarrassment, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Honeymoon, Humour, Jyn is not good at emotions, K2 is a sarky tin can, K2 is amused, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Post-Battle of Scarif, Pre-Relationship, RebelCaptain May the Fourth Exchange, Requited Unrequited Love, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Swimming, UST, Undercover as a Couple, a taste of the high life, a touch of angst, and moments of realisation for both partners, honeymoon resort, mission fic with pining, neither is Cassian, or maybe that should read Pining fic with mission, these two dorks in love, unadmitted feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 04:04:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14536242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: Nearly a year after Scarif, neither Cassian nor Jyn has admitted their growing feelings for one another, even to themselves.  Then they have to go undercover unexpectedly in a smart holiday resort.As newly-weds.





	Love’s Bright Dream… (and Silver Bay Resort and Spa)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andromeda3116](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andromeda3116/gifts).



> My May the 4th Exchange fic for the wonderful andromeda3116, who asked for "undercover as lovers". I hope this will fit the bill!

Jyn extracts the last of the clothes from the small on-board sonic and shakes them out, checking to be sure all the stains have gone.  It had mostly been mud, for a change; their last mission was completed on schedule and with very little blood involved.  Since none of it was Cassian’s and only a small amount hers, she counts that as a win.

Pants, shirts, socks, underwear.  Everything’s clean.  She sorts it into two piles.  His, soft and worn, fabrics faded over the shoulders and round the back of collars, and her own things, slightly newer, colours still fresh although chosen to be unobtrusive from the start. 

She’s never made much of a thing about clothes. They’re practical things for warmth and covering up skin.  But there’s something peculiarly pleasing about putting away a whole stack of laundry, after years of having precisely one shirt, one set of underclothes.  Her grey top and her two green ones, her blue-green trousers and her blue-grey ones.  Her five pairs of socks.  All clean and dry.

She knows that Cassian didn’t mean _Welcome to always having spare socks_ by his _Welcome home_.  But in almost a year since Scarif they’ve still never really quantified what those words did mean.  And the comfort of warm dry feet is a concrete certainty, compared to her emotions.

So many things are still nebulous, unsaid, perhaps unsayable; and maybe always will be.  But all the doubts and uncertainties have been worth enduring, for the friendship, the comradeship, the sense of purpose.  The sense of home.

From above her on the flight deck comes the quiet sound of K2-mark2’s voice.  After a moment Cassian answers.  Jyn pauses in her folding.  She can’t hear their words – K’s new voice is softer and less assertive than his old one, and Cassian is very seldom loud in any circumstances to begin with, the habit of going unnoticed far too engrained in him.  But she can hear their tone.  Petulant on K’s part, then Cassian’s reply comes with a smile in the tone, slight but unmistakable.  It’s a good sound.  The voice of friendship.

She refuses herself any further analysis.  Disavows the very thought.  Why pick apart the fact that Cassian sounds happy, the fact he feels safe enough to let it show; that K is so nearly unchanged in his new self; that these things please her?  Surely, Cassian being happy, K being alive, are intrinsically good, whatever her views.  Or her Force-damned feelings.  Which are irrelevant.

There’s a light step on the companionway and Cassian appears, descending to her level and turning as he jumps off the last rung.  It’s good to see how well he moves.  The weeks of traction, months of physiotherapy, have really paid off; one would hardly know, now, how much surgery he’s had.  He’s not merely smiling, either, but grinning outright as he comes over to her.

“Do you know what K just said?  He cussed at me!  He actually said _kriffing_.  I have never heard him swear before, never once.”

Jyn smiles back. “I guess he’s still frustrated sometimes by his new chassis.  I hope you didn’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all.  You know how soldiers swear.  It’s just – weird.” 

“Then maybe he’s trying to weird you out.  That would hardly be out of character, after all.” There’s no way in the hells she’s going to let on to having discussed with K whether hearing him curse might make Cassian smile; but clearly it does.  She resolves to give the droid a high-five next time they’re alone together.  They’ve already discovered that the left-over secretarial-droid programming in his new V-series body includes an impressive library of conventional gestures.

“You didn’t have to do my laundry for me, Jyn.” Cassian is looking down at her, rubbing the base of his skull in embarrassment. “Thank you, I – I appreciate it.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, but –“

“I was doing mine anyway. It’s no bother.”

Force alive, he’s smiling at her now.  How has he never realised what it does to her, when he meets her eyes like that, bends his head to hers like that, lets his expression shift, so subtly, so sweetly into softness.  Like that.  **How?**

_Because you’ve never told him and you’re never going to, idiot.  He doesn’t need to know.  Don’t lump him with this._

She picks up the folded pile of his shirts, socks, underpants, and offers it to him. “Here you are, all done.  Didn’t take me long.”  Refuses to allow herself the little tweak of a grin that wants to come when she feels the brush of his hand on hers.  _Yeah, I can fold his underwear, I can even touch his hand, and not make a nuisance of myself.  Big deal, Jyn._

There’s a bleep from the flight deck and K2-mk2 says “Incoming comm-call from base for you, Cassian.”  The new voice, brightly charming when raised; but he’s already starting to modulate it, to get a faint note of sarcasm.  Once a K-series, always a K-series.

Cassian is standing right in front of her, still holding the laundry, still looking down into her face as if he’s waiting for something else to happen.  He gives a little start and looks up. “Who’s calling, K?”

“No caller id given.  But whoever it is, is using General Draven’s personal codes.”

Which is as much as to say, it’s Draven.  Cassian sighs. “I’ll take it on the cans.” He puts the clothes down on one of the benches. “Sorry, Jyn, would you excuse me for a moment?”

Such a one for protocol, always.  He doesn’t need to be so polite to her, they’re comrades after all, he could call her bantha-face if he wanted to and she’d take it like the friendly joshing it would be.  But Cassian is always utterly courteous.  Like now, smiling back at her anxiously as he turns to the built-in comm-set on the bulkhead beside the ladder.

Jyn moves away to give him the space to talk without having to lower his voice.  Personal code means a personal call, so it’s a basic bit of good manners to show him the courtesy he’s always showing her.  She takes her own things into her tiny cabin and puts them into the holdall locker by the bunk.  When she comes out again, Cassian’s still on the comm, so she picks up his things as well, catches his eye to ask with a nod of her head if he’s okay with this, then takes them into his quarters. 

She doesn’t put them away.  The interior of his locker is private.  That’s another of the basics. 

When she starts to go out, he’s still talking, in a low, soothing murmur that doesn’t sound at all like the tone he’d normally take with the General.  If there’s one thing Davits Draven has surely never needed, it’s to be reassured.  Jyn hesitates, then dives back into Cassian’s cabin.  Better to be standing in his quarters definitely-not-looking at any of his things, than eavesdropping on something as weird, and as surely personal, as that.

Definitely not looking at his spare pair of boots, with the laces removed and wound neatly, and the canister of dubbin and oily rag left beside them.  Definitely not looking at his data pad on the unit by the bunk, or his sleep clothes folded and set ready on the single pillow.

Definitely not inhaling the quiet, unmistakable smell of him in the air.

The door opens and he’s standing there.  She says hastily “Sorry, was just – uh –“

“I’m sorry, that call was – not what I expected.” He steps back, letting her out, and then turns and follows her into the main cabin again. “Jyn, I’m afraid we’ve just lost our furlough.  We have to go straight into another mission.”

_Oh._

“What is it?”

“Extraction.  Urgent.”

“Obviously.  Who?”

Cassian pulls out one of the seats and flops into it, suddenly looking more tired than usual.  It seems she wasn’t the only one really looking forward to a few days on base, to real food after three weeks of freeze-dried ration packs, and time to catch up on friends and reading, and sleep.

“It’s an old contact of mine.  In fact I recruited him.  We owe him a lot, he’s been a double agent for us for almost a decade.  That was him now; Draven was just patching through his call.  His name is Lt-Colonel Penlo Cedrier.”

A Lieutenant-Colonel will have been a very useful contact, with high-level clearance.  Good intel.  Fair enough, they do have to get this one out, then.  “Cover been blown?”

“No, though he’s anxious that it might be.  No, his status has changed and he wants out.  He’s got married.”

“How nice for him,” Jyn says.  So after ten years the guy gets cold feet about doing the right thing?  Maybe he should have thought of that before he tied his life to another person’s.  Some people have seen how affection compromises their judgement; some people have learned not to admit love into their lives. “New spouse wants him to stop taking risks and look after number one?” But it won’t help being acid about it. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

“He’s being redeployed right after the honeymoon, so we have a limited window of opportunity.  We pick them up from the resort, make it look like a kidnapping so no repercussions on their families.  Should be fairly quick, an in-and-out job.  I’ve already got K working on some of the details, checking out the location, sorting out cover ids and so on.  With luck the detour won’t take up all of our shore leave and we can still get a couple of days on base at the end.”

“I’d like that,” she tells him.  He’s smiling and rubbing his neck again.  She wishes she could give him a neck massage, ease those sore muscles out of their tension. 

They grin at one another, and for a moment it feels sweetly and painfully as if they could be thinking the same thing.  Though surely they can’t be.  _Come off it, Jyn._

Then there’s a metallic clatter from above and K appears, coming down the companionway, moving awkwardly still in the short-legged new chassis.  He reaches the deck and uncurls his hands from the supports with a clinking of delicate joints.  Turns round.  A trifle theatrically, as though part of him still expects to have the impact of a towering grey-steel KX enforcer even now when he’s barely five feet high and a pretty pale yellow in colour.

“I’ve put the ship on autopilot, Cassian,” he says “and I’ve completed the research you gave me.  Here it is.” He hands over a data-pad.

“You could have downloaded it onto my pad and stayed on deck.”

“I know, but nothing happens in hyperspace and I was bored.  You’ve always liked giving me boring jobs.  I don’t know why that is.  Perhaps you derive pleasure from underusing my capacities.  Also I wanted to deliver the information in person and be sure that my results were satisfactory.  This V-series has protocols that make that sort of thing an imperative, you know.”

Cassian is already scanning through the list of links and other information. He looks up and catches her eye for a second, with a wry twinkle that warms her insides like good hot kaf. “This is great, K, thank you, this is – wait, what?  You’ve put in a request for us to have extra budget assigned?  _2000 credits’ worth?_ – K, what in the stars is this for?“

“You’re going to be operating undercover on Varadis.  It’s a resort planet.  You will require clothing for your cover identities.”    

“But this is enough to – K, we’ll only be there a few hours.  A day at most.  And we’ll probably go undercover as – I dunno, cleaning staff or something.”

K draws himself up to his unimpressive full height.  “I have been researching your destination and I regret to have to inform you that the resort in question has an 85% droid staff.  You will be much more likely to reach your target if you book in as two guests.”

“I can slice the hotel’s finance systems, get us a couple of free nights,” Jyn puts in.  A smart resort hotel?  Not really her idea of fun.   But on the other hand, the hells with it, it’s only for a day or so and at least there should be some decent food. “Easy.”

She shrugs at Cassian and he half-smiles and says “There, that’s settled then.  You can rescind the budget request, K.”

“You will need clothing appropriate for your role as guests.  The Love’s Bright Dream and Silver Bay Resort and Spa is an eight-star luxury hotel.  Unfortunately there isn’t enough time to return to base and collect suitable items from supplies.  I recommend a stop-over in a neighbouring system to go shopping.” The droid starts to turn back to the companionway ladder and then stops.  Turns back. 

“There’s one other thing,” he says brightly. “The Love’s Bright Dream and Silver Bay Resort and Spa is a honeymoon resort.  The clue is in the name.  They only accept bookings from newly-married couples.  Another job for Sergeant Erso’s slicing skills, perhaps?  Unless you would prefer to get married?”

He clanks back up to the flight deck, leaving them staring at one another.

“Shavit.” Cassian looks away first, mutters more swear words under his breath.  _Well, shit.  That couldn’t be more plain.  Shit shit shit._

“It’s – it’s okay, Cassian, I’m sure I can – cook up some fake docs, splice our holos into marriage certificates from somewhere.  Can’t be that much harder than regular fake id, right?” She’s almost prattling, krif it.  Willing his expression to change; to brighten, to smile, or at least look less hang-a-wolf miserable. “Don’t worry about it, it’ll be fine.  Mission on.  In-and-out, like you said...”

How easy it is, to sound chipper and unconcerned, when your heart is sliding out through your ribs, bleeding away in every breath you take.  Ha-ha, undercover as newly-weds.  How hilarious, K.

**

It’s taken a day longer than he’d meant already.  A simple flight to Varadis would have been 16 hours, but the shopping stopover added another 8, and then they’d had to land within speeder-distance of Silver Bay, hike back to the nearest settlement along back trails to avoid being seen, and pick up a resort shuttle from there. 

Luckily the shuttle baggage loaders are droids, and don’t stare at their two plain bags.  Every other guest boarding has several pieces of luggage in fashionable colours; luggage with built-in compasses and gyroscopic balance aids, non-slip handles, anti-grav hover-fittings.  Cassian and Jyn have twin green duffels; and neither is even particularly clean.

They have a back-story for that, of course.  Apart from the time in the mall on Fari Haven, they’d spent most of the journey planning and running over their new ids. 

They are Caspian and Jeena Aach, newly-married, he a fleet lieutenant first class, she the only daughter of a high-level contractor in hospitality supplies.  They’ve been married two weeks and have spent the first part of their honeymoon on a “back-to-nature” hike in the mountains of Duer Hakkar; and they’re going to finish off with a week of complete laziness in the most romantic place they can find.  The Love’s Bright Dream Resort, with its dainty little Traditional Thatched Cabins scattered along a ten-mile stretch of white-blonde beaches and clear lagoons, its Intimate Luxury Spa and six giant swimming pools, its All-Inclusive Dining With Fine Wines and Unlimited Bar… 

Well, the unlimited bar may even help, since it’s going to mean most of the guests are permanently half-cut or worse.  Reduced observational skills in a large percentage of those around them could certainly be useful. 

If anyone does remark on the scruffy bags, they’ve got a whole dialogue worked out, even down to the moment Jyn will giggle and he will cuddle up to her and press his nose to her bangs.  They had to rehearse that; a signature move, a cute _this is our thing_ for the dizzy-eyed lovers they have to be.

No.  Have to _pretend_ to be. 

This is going to drive him insane.

He hasn’t yet seen the rest of what Jyn bought in Fari Haven; just this travel outfit with the high-cut shorts, the silk vest top.  She’s a practical woman, so there’s a good chance most of it can be repurposed; he’s certainly done his best to choose things that Supplies will welcome afterwards. 

But the shorts and the vest show such a lot of her beautiful clear skin.  And the cuddling thing, Force alive.  Her hair smells so good.  Her hair, her skin; so warm, so good. 

It does at least make it easy to fake being in love with her.  Jyn is probably – no, definitely, unavoidably, inexorably and shatteringly – the person he loves most in the galaxy.  So he can draw on that, right?  For the role? 

Undercover ids, fake personas, the whole damn bantha-herd, always work better if there’s a core of reality on which to build what you fake.  And he is faking this.  Faking it, faking it.

Cassian keeps telling himself that.  Over and over, because surely it has to sink in, eventually.  Once again, he’s just doing this for the rebellion.  This, even this, his dearest and most-tightly-held secret, he’ll sacrifice for the cause.

They lean together on the shuttle, her bare shoulder brushing his arm.  With just a small turn of his head he can bury his nose in her hair (and it’s so soft, soft and scented with the sweet smell of Jyn oh agony, agony…).  The afternoon sun is catching golden highlights in the short hairs on her forearms, and in her lashes.  When she looks up at him her eyes are like two ocean planets seen from high orbit.  For a moment there’s a flicker of something in her face as he puts an arm round her.  Then she leans into his side with a sigh, closes her eyes.  Breathes deeply, as though his shirt smells good. 

The ride is taking forever.  This kriffing resort is huge.  All he wants to do is get this over with and -

_Stay alert, Andor.  Focus._

He breathes, and sets aside his own will; lets his eyes stay drifted in Jyn’s hair while every other sense tingles in readiness.  _I’ve been doing this for years and this is no different.  It’s.  No.  Different._

The shuttle sways gently through a jungle that has been just marginally, subtly manicured into beauty.  Vast swathes of flowering creeper drape between the palms and big-leaf trees and birds call overhead.  Here and there through the trees there are glimpses of the sea, and the vast stretch of white-sand beach that give the resort its name.  On one promontory a picturesque ruin stands half-buried in foliage.

Ahead, floating above the tops of palms, is a graceful structure supported on marble pillars, its arched windows and shell-shaped roof gleaming with duraglass and transparisteel.  Around it, pretty cabins peep out of the artful jungle, all conical thatched rooftops and colourful sunshades.

An hour later they’re ensconced inside one; a Luxury Garden Cabin Suite.  He can see Jyn standing outside on their shaded terrace, staring out at the lush growth of palms and tropical foliage, the flowering trees, winding gold-stone pathways.  There are gardening mouse droids trimming the grass and rolling fallen palm-nuts off the path.  The concierge service has delivered their bags.  There’s a tray of light snacks waiting, a kaf-brewing machine and a tea-set, and a mini-bar stocked with beverages both alcoholic and soft.

They’ve both cracked open bottles of mineral water.  It’s hot. 

Kay stands in the middle of the main room of the suite, somehow taking up vastly more space than any normal V-series.  He’s tinkering with Cassian’s pocket comm, one digit extended to form a fine-gauge probe.  “I’ve secured our comms.  I fine-tuned both of your hand-helds to match the wavelength Penlo Cedrier was using earlier, and I’ve scrambled audio signals and installed three-level encryption on text-based media and images.”

It’s as secure as you can make a standard comm operating on Imp airwaves if you’re working on the fly.  “Thank you, K.”

“Of course, so far it’s been a waste of time, as Cedrier’s own unit is _turned off_.” The droid’s tone is acid enough to curdle cheese.

Jyn looks round through the open glass door.  “Turned off?” she queries. “Thought he was waiting for us to make contact.”  She frowns and takes another long swig of water.  Mutters “Idiot” crossly.

“I don’t like it either,” Cassian tells her. “But it’s – let’s just say, it’s in character.”

“There is a sixty-two percent probability he’s simply limiting comm use to avoid detection,” K says. “Honeymooners do not generally spend their time making business calls.  Usually they are otherwise occupied.”

Jyn blinks and her mouth tightens.

“There’s also a thirty-one percent probability that the new Mrs Cedrier has persuaded him to concentrate on the honeymoon until our arrival.  For the same reasons.”

“Or, he’s been compromised.”

K nods. “Or he’s been compromised.  But at present the odds of that are only 9 percent.  Analysis of the comm signature in the signal rebound suggests it is in working order; it’s been switched off, not destroyed.  There are no indications of heightened security in the resort and no sign that any such measures have occurred in recent days.  Guests and both droid and human staff appear to be operating entirely within expected parameters.  As Cassian can verify, Lt-Col Cedrier is an unusually cautious individual.  Our best option is to proceed on the assumption that he and Mrs Cedrier are safe but currently unwilling to communicate.”

Cassian shrugs.  “I’d call Pen worse than just _cautious_.  He’s been a nervous wreck most times we’ve had contact.  Frankly I’m amazed he’s lasted this long before asking for extraction.  Anyway, I don’t like this any more than you, Jyn, but for the time being we’re just going to have to look for him the old-fashioned way.  K, please will you maintain regular scans for any incoming signals?  Don’t ping him and don’t try to track his location, it’s still risky with an unshielded unit, even with the measures you’ve taken.  Just keep checking.”

He walks across to the doorway.  The sunroof over the terrace is made of sunshine-yellow canvas; it casts a warm shade that brings out the bright brown of Jyn’s hair, the golden flecks in her eyes.

“We need to know more about the resort layout,” she says. “K, can you patrol about a bit, if it won’t draw attention?”

“Attention?  No-one’s going to pay me any attention,” Kay says. “Why would someone look at a V-series when obviously it will be running errands for its masters?  People with PA droids ask them to do the stupidest things.  For example you could send me to request a fruit basket for the suite.  Or to order tickets for the performing cetacean show.  I’m sure you can come up with more _essential errands_ like that.”

“Can you get the specs of these guys?” Jyn asked, tipping her head to indicate the gardener-droids  below.

Cassian nods. “Good idea.  And get as much data as possible on areas where we can’t go as guests.  Back offices, stores, the location of power conduits.  Drainage systems, garbage disposal units.  Places we could plant a small IED in the event we need to create a distraction.”

“And get a look at their inventories if you can,” Jyn adds. “Especially for acids, alkaline reagents, solvents.  Sugar alcohols.  Nitrates.  You know the routine.  Not essential to kill anyone this time, but things to make a bang and a mess.”

Her momentary grin at the idea of building a bomb warms his heart. 

_Oh yes, this is me nowadays.  A man who’s excited by the thought of his girl blowing things up._

_Jyn is not **my girl**.  Where the pfassk did that come from, Andor?  My partner, my comrade, my friend, my second-in-command.  My everything- **except** -my-girl._

“I will check availability of the cetacean show and the boat trips from the Old Harbour, and ‘get lost’ on the way back.  That should provide adequate opportunity to quarter the remainder of the resort.”

“And avoid engaging with other sentients if possible.”

“Are you concerned about my role-playing skills, Cassian?  I assure you they are greatly improved.  The residual PA programming in this unit includes clear parameters for deception and manipulative behaviour.  It would appear it’s considered normal for people to instruct their secretarial help to lie for them.”

“Just the same.  Minimal risk-taking.  Please, K.  Just the mapping and data-gathering.”

“O, very well,” the droid huffs.

“Jyn and I will scout out the public areas and search for Pen there.”

Jyn is looking out at the gardens again.  A belt of graceful palms runs past their private lawn above the beds of tropical flowers.  On the other side of that, he knows, is the sea. 

He’s enormously glad that when she sliced the hotel’s booking system Jyn didn’t arrange a beach-front suite for them.  They have a panorama of greenery, instead of waves and light on waves.  Even now, an ocean-view might have induced nightmares.

And given the scale of this fucking place, they may have to spend more than one day here before they find Pen Cedrier.

This could be a very strange mission.  Their time to prepare was only barely adequate, and with no back-up it’s likely they’re going to have to improvise at every stage.  It isn’t Jyn’s first time undercover, but it’s the first time she’s had to wing it like this since she was a sole operator with no goal but survival.  Lianna Hallik and Kestrel Dawn could simply cut and run if things got hot.  Sergeant Jyn Erso of Rebel Intelligence can’t; and wouldn’t even if she could. 

It’s his first time being responsible for her, too.  It’s for him to spot and fix any potential problems before they can happen.  Anything that might cause trouble. 

He’s already looked in the bedroom.  As if there was any chance that checking on the situation there could make it less difficult.

It’s very possibly the biggest bed he’s ever seen.  Big enough that even as he contemplates sleeping on the couch and trying to hide this from the (doubtless hyper-efficient) cleaning droids, a bit of his mind is thinking _Perhaps we **can** manage to share it without disturbing one another?_ …

“Okay,” says Jyn, practical, calm, looking out at the trees. “So we’re going to start looking for this fellow.  You do at least know what he looks like, right?”

“Unless he’s aged really, really badly.  Or shaved his head, or something.” It’s meant to be a joke.  She sighs.  Not amusing, then. “Sorry.  Yes, I’m sure I’ll recognise him.”

“But with not the faintest idea where they’re going to be, in a place this big; where do we start?”

“They have to eat.  So we take care not to miss a meal.”

That at least does get him a smile; sidelong, half-smothered, but an absolutely real Jyn-smile, not Jeena at all.  “Shouldn’t be a hardship.  Food should be top-notch in a shiny-hole like this, right?”

“And then – uh.  It’s a honeymoon resort and they’re on their honeymoon, so – romantic things.  Like…” Like he hasn’t a clue what.

“Yeah…  Like what.  Ugh, what do people do who just got married?  Apart from the obvious.”

A moment later Jyn blushes scarlet, as if her body has only just caught up with what she’s saying. 

His brain and body meanwhile have both stuck fast; hooked, helpless, on those same words.  He’s burning hot, the room airless.

“Ah,” he says, trying to shut his mouth again “I think – I think – dancing.  Going dancing.  And swimming in the sea.  Ah – and Varadis has twin moons.  Maybe dancing by moonlight?”

“And there are bound to be romantic meal options at the hotel, aren’t there?” Jyn’s colour is still high but she carries on, solid-hearted soldier that she is, refusing to be distracted even by her own burning crimson neck. “Dinner-for-two by lamplight, that sort of thing, right?”

He has to sound casual. “Yeah.  Bound to be.”

“Then we do those, for now, and keep our eyes open.” She gives him another glance.  Her glances are very quick, and very careful. “If we’re lucky, we might even find them without needing to use the comm at all.  Good?”

“Good.”  He’ll get used to it.  It will get better.  Romantic meals.  Swimming with her.  Moonlight dancing together. 

Yeah, this was going to be so much easier than risking using an unshielded comm.

It doesn’t get better.  Jyn unpacks a small set of clothes, vanishes into the en-suite refresher and emerges clad in a pale green shiny skin-tight garment _what the hells?_   _What – **no** – yes – **what?**   Is that underwear?  No, it has to be for – bathing?_ 

Her skin is so pale, so pearly.  The body-suit covers most of her torso, but it’s cut low at the neck and in the back, and high at the hips.  There’s a lot of skin.  He thought the shorts were a tough call, showing off that terrific pair of legs; but now he can even see the creases at the tops of her thighs.  He can see her hip bones and the rounding of her breasts.  The thin taut fabric moves with every breath.  He can see the top of one of her scars, just under her collarbone where the jade-coloured strap doesn’t quite cover it.  His mouth goes wet. 

He wants to slide his tongue across that tender skin, to kiss that precious scar and wrap his mouth around her nipples that are suddenly standing up under the tight silk.  

 _Holy fuck, **no!**_   He drags his despairing eyes up, up, to Jyn’s face. 

Her pale – no, her furiously blushing ( _and oh, this is a thousand times worse_ ) face, her dear and honourable face.  His partner, his friend, his comrade. 

“I, uh, I’ll,” he says.  Words short-circuiting and trailing back on one another like a brain-maze puzzle.

“I know you probably don’t want to go down to the sea any more than I do,” Jyn says in a small voice.  “So I figured maybe we should take the plunge and get it done with.  Caspian and Jeena would want to.  Else why’d they book a beach resort?  So the same must go for your guy, right?”

“I, ah, yeah.” Force alive, when she speaks her throat moves and the top of her ribcage moves, her breasts move; her sternum gleams in the sunlight as her breathing comes and goes.  He wants to taste that skin so badly.  The light is smooth on her bare legs, _dear Force alive she has beautiful legs_ , Jyn walking towards him, barefoot like an amazon warrior maid in a folktale, slim muscular arms swinging at her sides and _I am going to go insane or have a coronary I have to stop staring at her I have to **STOP**_

“Does this look ok?” she asks.  “You’re frowning.  Is it too plain?  I had no idea which one to buy so I bought the green one because – well – green.  You know.  I like green.”

“I like green too.”  _Yes, words, you can do this thing, Andor, that’s right.  Words.  In a row._

“It looks ok?”

“It looks great.”

Jyn looks so relieved he wants to hit himself in the head. 

“Did you buy something to swim in?” she asks after a moment. “Sun-shorts, something like that?”

He did.  It went against the grain, seeing as their last two bases were both on-board ship, and the planned new permanent HQ will be on an ice-world, so there’s no likelihood of anyone re-using them in the near future.  But he knew it was a beach resort, and he bought a pair of dark blue board shorts. 

He should get changed and join her.  On the beach, by the sea.  She’s quite right, Pen and his bride could easily be there.  And they need to face this whole on-the-beach-by-the-sea thing, this sea-wind-and-sunlight-on-water thing, and quickly.  Before it freaks one or the other of them out so much that they can’t do it at all. 

Not that he could be freaked out much more than he is already.  Dear Heavens and Stars of Life, Jyn is so beautiful.  Her hair is in a loose plait, pulled back and twisted with a bit of green ribbon.  Her full lips are smiling at him, she looks shy and pleased and as if she’s trying to encourage him.  There’s not one thing about her that isn’t stunning in every way.

He’s going to be in hell, sheer unambiguous all-my-blood-just-rushed-to-the-wrong-place _hell_ , until they find Pen Cedrier.

And she’s so beautiful right now, he thinks he’ll even enjoy it.

He changes, and glares at himself in the full-length ‘fresher mirror.  Puts one of the hotel beach towels round his shoulders self-consciously.  It feels particularly galling to be half-naked now, next to the radiant mightiness that is Jyn and her warrior body, when he knows himself such a scrawny, sinewy mess.  Narrow shoulders, unimpressive muscles, skinny legs.  He hasn’t even got a decent amount of chest hair.  People are going to wonder what in the stars a gorgeous woman like Jeena sees in Caspian Aach.

But wrapping up his puny self like a parcel just makes him more conspicuous.  He needs to be as confidant – as arrogant – as any other Imp officer.   A successful young man with a good career path.  Aach would see nothing but quality in himself.  Aach is a catch. 

He repositions the towel over one shoulder, arranging it to look casual.  Steps out into the main lounge of the suite, feeling acutely vulnerable; he’s about to go out in public, undercover in an unfamiliar environment, and he’s semi-naked, and unarmed bar the towel.

Not that he will need to attack anyone with that; he’s with Jyn.  She doesn’t need weaponry to be dangerous.  She hasn’t even put on a wrap.  But Jyn is always the one who faces everything head-on, unhesitating and with her eyes wide open.  He stays in the background, a man best kept hidden.  She is someone who deserves to be seen.

She’s looking at him thoughtfully.  Almost fixedly.  The same thoughts, perhaps, going through her mind.  Cassian pulls the fabric down a little, to cover at least a small part of his bare chest.  “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go to this beach.”

From the main room, a bright droid voice calls “Have fun!” as K flaunts his role-playing skills.

_Please don’t let us have to rely on K’s role-playing skills.  I’m already losing my grip without that._

Jyn pats her key-bracelet on the door-pad as they leave, and locks the door.  They stroll along one of the golden paths, through shrubberies and past a stand of fantastical cacti with giant flowers like tangled anemones.  Through the belt of palms, up a little footbridge, over an artful artificial stream.  He’s mapping it all with each step, adding data to what he already knows of the topography and scale of the place, building a fuller picture of the resort as quickly as possible.  Doubtless Jyn is doing likewise.  He certainly isn’t thinking at all ( _no, Cassian, you cretin, not at all_ ) about the woman at his side, walking in her clinging costume, a pair of informal toe-strap sandals on her bare feet ( _what small toes she has_ ), her wonderful legs ( _no, no, **no**_ …).

At the top of the wooden footbridge, suddenly they are past the last line of greenery, and there’s nothing more between them and the sea.

_Here goes.  At least we both know how to swim._

But how stupidly illogical to be thinking that now, when he’s suddenly rigid with tension, having to conquer each limb, to consciously relax his airways.  There it is, the sea, the beach, the sand, the waves.  The sun, the sunlight on the waves, very bright in his eyes. 

He’s a hardened soldier and an experienced undercover operative and he has had to do far worse things than face a frightening memory. 

Beside him, Jyn gasps, and it’s a tiny, tiny sound but he knows she’s thinking the same. _We can do this, we can do this, we’re together._ He reaches out to her and when their hands meet and clasp he can feel her draw in a good deep breath.  There’s untold comfort in that.  _We can do this, come on…_

Together, they go down the steps to the beach.

**

It really doesn’t help that the fucking sea is so very blue and the sand is so very white, so dazzling, so soft underfoot.  The sun, so hot, so bright on the water.  Every time Jyn thinks she’s mastered the whole thing it swings back like a pendulum and socks her again; sun, sea, brightness.  It takes a moment to catch her breath.  Would be taking far longer, would be taking forever or as good as, without Cassian’s strong hand in hers.  _Pull yourself together, Jyn._

_Plenty of planets have oceans and seashores, it isn’t even the first time you’ve seen the fucking sea since Scarif.  Just – the first time that – everything –_

_We made it through that day, when it looked like death, when every chance had run out we still made it through.  This – this is nothing.  A single day of undercover work.  Meet this contact of Cassian’s and his little wifey, whisk them away, we’ll be out of here in no time.  We may not even have time to eat a meal._

_I could almost resent it if we don’t get to eat.  No broiled mycoprotein slabs and gel-carbs here.  This is a quality outfit._

_So come on, Jyn.  Pull yourself together._

_Please let it look like we’re just so enthralled with the view._

They’ve reached the bottom of the steps and they’ve been standing staring at the white, white beach and the sunlight on the sea for close on a minute. 

“Come on,” she whispers.  Gives his hand a little squeeze. 

“Yeah.  It’s really very – very beautiful, isn’t it? Let’s go swim, shall we?”

Somehow they’ve both turned slightly, and they’re looking at one another; and somehow when their eyes meet she is once again absolutely sure of him.  _My dear, my friend, my partner, no matter what I can always count on you._ The one who always comes back for her, who she will always come back to.  Somehow the smile that rises this time is completely natural; and he smiles too.

_Oh Cassian, I do love you so.  Even if I can never tell you._

“Last one in the water is a rotten egg!” she says instead, and runs for the sand.  He catches her up in a couple of strides.  He’s laughing as they splash into the shallows side by side.

The water’s warm.  Jyn processes the shock with a kick of self-derision.  Of course it is; this isn’t the sea she knew, the wild cold one where Lyra taught her to swim.  This sea is warm as a ‘fresher, and as clean and clear. 

Sparkling around her, small bright waves gliding in, rippling round her calves, breaking on the sand. 

A kindly sea. 

And here is Cassian by her side, laughing and beautiful.  She looks up into his face, reminds herself again that all this is only playacting.  He’s got years of experience at working undercover, it must come natural as walking to him.  But if he were really happy, here with her, is this how he’d look, how he’d sound?  His laugh has an unpractised sound to it, small and husky.  Very sweet to hear, whether real or not.

There’s no sign now of the towel, he must have thrown it down on the sand as they ran forward.  He’s a little deeper into the waves than her, and he stands smiling, splashing himself, then rubbing his wet hands together nervously. 

Dear stars, he’s beautiful.  He’s so beautiful it hurts.  All long lean muscle, athletic and poised; a faint, barely discernible discolouration here and there where distinguishing scars have been grafted over; fine dark hair across his chest and running in a silky line down to his waistband, to –

_No no, no no **no** , don’t go there, don’t look, don’t **don’t** check out your partner’s –_

Cassian wades out deeper as she stands sweating with embarrassment in the shallows.  The water is round his thighs, his hips, it’s lapping at his ass, and the blue cotton cloth clings –

_Remind me who decided to call this an easy in-and-out mission?  I’m going to fucking die._

A low swell rolls in towards them and Cassian puts both arms up and launches himself forward, dives headlong into the belly of the wave.

Jyn bites her lips.  He makes it look so easy.

There’s salt on her skin, already, and it’s been so long since she’s tasted that.  Salty skin, perspiration drying after exertion…  There’s something unbearably sensual suddenly about the tenderness of the water touching her and the taste of salt in her mouth; she has to move again, move past it, before it overwhelms her.  She wades out until just her head and shoulders are above the surface.  Takes her feet off the bottom.  The small waves bounce against her.  She bobs, feeling very small in the vast horizon of the sea.  Her own buoyancy is like a new sense, something never explored in herself. 

The sun blesses her, and the waves bob her gently as she blinks at the brightness all around.

Cassian resurfaces, a few yards off, wet hair streaming into his eyes.  His nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, and he looks around for her, and smiles meeting her eye.

His lips too would taste of the sea, now.  His eyes are dark with sunlight.

Jyn swims towards him sedately, her best kick-stroke, pale hands reaching for him through the water and drawing away over and over.  He waits for her.  She reaches him and slows, treads water, sees droplets in his eyebrows and on his lashes, and it’s like looking at a string of diamonds and brown gems.  

They have never looked one another so directly in the eyes before.  Suddenly they’re exactly the same height, treading water. 

He says breathlessly “So, why rotten egg?”

“Papa used to say that.” So long, long ago.  She can see Cassian’s outstretched arms moving in the crystal water, shifting position as each gentle waves slides by him. “He’d say _Last one to_ – oh, I don’t know, _last one to finish their soup_ or _to get to the house_ , _finish the game_ – the silliest things – _last one to finish is a rotten egg_.  We didn’t have eggs very often, you had to steal them from the galla nests.”  His eyes are very quiet, expressionless as the jewels they resemble.  The spy face.  Is he remembering details in a file, trying to match this story of tomfoolery to that dark history of weapons and betrayals?  To a gaunt man seen only once, dying in the rain? “It was silly,” she repeats.

“No.  It sounds – kind.  Playful.  A father should be able to play.”

Suddenly he’s bobbing up and down, like her, as another waves rocks them both.

They hang floating in time, watching one another like sea creatures.

“I’m going to swim some more,” Jyn tells him.  If she doesn’t break this suspended moment, her hands are going to reach out and touch him.  And yes, it’s true that might be a good move, after all they need to look close, that’s what all that touching and cuddling stuff is for, because _undercover_ means _living your cover_ , and they are undercover _as a couple_.  But running her fingertips down Cassian’s abs beneath the water, and up to his shoulders, and round his jawline where the next wave kisses it and laps away again; no, she can’t do that, never mind how normal it would be for Jeena Aach it is absolutely not normal for Jyn.

She resumes her careful kick-stroke, head up, arms reaching out and pulling the water back.  After a few strokes, Cassian passes her, streamlined, underwater.  His sleek dark head breaks the surface several yards in front and he takes a breath and dives again.  He’s always been the better swimmer, she remembers, even when he was swimming for physiotherapy, back on Yavin 4.  But she’s never seen him move so fast, or so smoothly.

He swims and comes to the surface, looks around, sees her and smiles; and repeats, swim, surface, look about him, smile at her.  Or rather, at Jeena.  This is how Aach swims. 

And of course, he’s checking the entire beach as he does so.  Looking round to smile at the little woman is just a clever pretext for scanning their surroundings; really he’s just searching for the Cedriers.

After all, he’s going to have to do all the looking, until they can establish comm contact, since he’s the only one who knows what these fuck-os look like.  She wouldn’t know either husband or wife from a bantha-herder on Borodor. 

Jyn swims on determinedly until her legs are tired and her fingers have pruned beyond recognition.  Then wades to the shore and spreads out Cassian’s towel to sit on. 

It’s late afternoon, shadows starting to creep onto the sand from the long line of palms behind.  The warm air is gentle, the sun no longer overwhelmingly hot.  The salt dries on her skin and tingles pleasantly.  Despite the size of the resort, it seems relatively few guests come swimming in the ocean; she can see a few other heads out on the water besides Cassian’s, and there are distant voices laughing and calling out, swimmers playing together; and behind everything, the soft, soft voice of the waves and the breeze, of seabirds and murmuring trees. 

_It’s really very peaceful.  If you don’t allow yourself to think of anything else, if you pretend you’ve never seen a beach like this burned out of existence.  Peaceful and beautiful._

The sand is pale gold, powder-fine and soft as shimmer-silk.  Here and there as she runs her fingers through it she finds tiny shells, no bigger than beads, and fragments of worn white coral.

“Hey,” says Cassian’s voice, close by, so that she jumps and looks up quickly from her contemplation of the silky sand. “You’re very thoughtful.”

“Yes…” says Jyn’s voice automatically, while her brain dies a little at the sight of him.  There he is again, all dripping wet and lean and handsome, trickles of water running down his chest, down his thighs. 

Jeena Aach would probably sit up and lick her husband at this moment.  Jump him and kiss him, at the very least.  But although they discussed the need for visible indications of physical affection, and planned their silly cuddle-game, although she knows that for the job, she has his consent to touch him in public and to make it look good; still _no, no, no, I can’t!_

_I can’t, because I want to too much._

“I wonder what’s for supper?” she says stupidly.

Cassian flops down beside her.  Dripping, panting, salty, beautiful.  “Let’s shower and get changed, and find out, shall we?” He leans close and whispers “No sign of them here.”

“Okay…” She rubs a pinch of the sand between her fingers. “If I need to make a smoke bomb, this stuff is fine enough to use for airborne powder.  It would diffuse pretty well with a bit of bang behind it.”

“Touch me, Jyn,” he says huskily. “You need to touch me.  It’s okay.”

She pats his knee and tries to get her brain in focus.  It’s like having a broken data screen, she can’t get rid of the one picture.  There’s too much nakedness going on here, her own bare skin, already dry and warm from the sun, and his body beside her still wet from the sea.  So beautiful.

“Supper,” she says again.  Jeena Aach, she’s going to decide right now, likes her food.  Jeena Aach is a greedy little hog.  So at least one of them will be getting the things she wants in her mouth.

**

 _It will get better, it will get easier_ , Cassian tells himself for what must already be the hundredth time.

The grand terrace bar is lit with floating globes of milk-blue glass that glow very softly, their light increasing as the dusk deepens.  Off in the direction of sunset, the bands of peach-blush sky and purple cloud are fading and the first evening stars have appeared.  There’s a pleasantly animated buzz of conversation from the neighbouring tables, and a rather less relaxed one at theirs.

They’ve both taken an anti-intoxicant, so the cocktails that taste so richly of fruit and spirits are having no effect at all, which probably doesn’t help. 

When they got back to their rooms, K-2 was still out on his exploratory trip, and the comm was still silent.  So for the time being they’re back with the watching and waiting.  The bar is a good vantage point, tables spread over a series of wide marble terraces , overlooking the second-floor infinity pool where the last of the sunset colours is now reflected like a painting.  Surely this is exactly where a real honeymoon couple would want to be seen.  Sipping Corellian Gin-and-melon spritzers and looking beautiful. 

Looking so, so beautiful.

Jyn’s evening outfit is very simple; loose white pants and a strapless green top that shows off her muscular arms and toned shoulders.  She’s let her hair down; the mild light catches chestnut gleams in it and casts down-shadows across her skin, into the hollows of her throat and her collarbones.  He wants to kiss the shadows, run his fingers over the rosy places where she’s caught the sun. 

Each time she raises her glass a spot of pink light refracts through the melon juice and dances up to her lips and down again.

They make small talk. 

He used to be good at this.  Used to be able to dismiss any emotions, so completely they might as well be non-existent.

Not anymore.  There’s nothing to him but emotions, right now.  He’s in hell.  Alert, professional, doing his job; but in hell just the same.  

Jyn on the other hand has definitely gotten better at the undercover game over the last year.  He’s helped with her training, some, but she hasn’t needed his input much; she masters things admirably quickly.  He steers his thoughts towards pride in her latest skill-set.  She’s really giving an excellent performance.  She sips her pink fruity gin and smiles and says the kind of idle things like “Look at that nice tree” that a woman without a care in the world might well say, sitting here waiting for her husband to cosy up to her, wondering why he doesn’t.  Planning what they’ll do when they get alone together, later. “Look at those pretty birds.  This drink is delicious.  I wonder what there’ll be for dessert?”

“You haven’t even had an appetiser and you want the sweet course already?” he says, hoping to get enough affection into the teasing that it doesn’t sound as though Aach is being a jerk to his smiling young wife.

“I want everything!” Jyn crinkles her eyes at him, laughing. “I want hors d’oeuvres and steak and salad, and cheese, and two desserts, and sparkling ice-wine, and chocolate and liqueurs.”

If they could just make contact and get to the business of organising the extraction he’d be alright.  That’s his world; but every other time he’s been undercover, there have been no distractions worth his attention.  And even a role as familiar as this has always been surprisingly hard when there is nothing at all happening; no action at all he can seize on, no plans he can work on, nothing to do but wait and watch.  Even before he had Jyn, the woman he’s been falling ever more deeply in love with for almost a year now, sitting opposite him, smiling up at him, biting her perfect lips.

She hasn’t done much to change her appearance, really; manner a little more arch, hair a little more groomed, a pink lip-stain added to her usual dark eye-shadow.  It pleases him so much to see how well she uses these superficial things, these details of movement and stance, to build her performance as silly, loving Jeena; and how inside she’s still Jyn, his competent, capable Jyn.

She could so easily have left the rebellion behind her in the dust.  What a wonder, and a joy, that she stayed.  To become his partner, his comrade, his friend.

The last sunset colours have faded, and some of the pale blue lamps are changing to other shades; rose pink, lemon yellow, a soft teal green.  Among them, swinging necklaces of droplet lights come on, sparkling like diamond points.  The effect is delicately festive, and up and down the terrace people look up, murmur appreciatively, smile.  He catches Jyn’s eye, and they do likewise.  “Isn’t this pretty?” – “Yes, isn’t it…”

“Almost as pretty as you,” he says; because a compliment would be entirely in place here.  And he doesn’t need to fake the warmth, goodness knows Jyn is looking even more radiant than she did earlier on the beach.

She blushes; and that, he knows, is almost impossible to fake.  He’s embarrassed her.  But a blush is in keeping for a young bride.  She isn’t drawing attention.

“Another drink?” he asks, touching his now-empty glass.  “Or would you like to go eat?”

“Let’s eat.  I’m famished!  All that swimming has given me such an appetite…  Unless –“ and her voice shades just a fraction, Jeena’s bright chatter slipping away –“ you’d like to stay a while longer.  I mean, if anything…”

Cassian shakes his head.  There’s still no sign of Pen.  “Let’s eat, then, darling.”

When he holds out a hand to her, she tucks herself in under his arm and leans against him.  He bends to smell her hair.  They are Caspian and Jeena, who are so, so in love.  Not Cassian and Jyn, who are not.

Her hair smells of herbs and fresh air.

The Cedriers have to be somewhere in this damned glory-dance of a hotel.  They have to put the comm on eventually.  They have to; because he’s not sure how long he can take this.

Caspian Aach leads his lovely wife into the hotel’s principal restaurant.

It’s a wide space floored in marble, lit by more sparkling chandeliers of droplet-lights, and with full-length windows giving onto the ocean view below.  The second moon is just rising out of the ocean, and the great arc of sand reflects a pale lilac moonlight.  Here and there in the trees, fire-bugs of some kind twinkle, sparks of phosphorescence like tiny living stars.  The restaurant terrace hangs on cantilevered buttresses, vast and aglow, a spacecraft cruising above their little universe of leaves.

There are several hundred tables, each one separately lit and tended by wait-staff both droid and human.  Diners dressed in every level of fashion from the most showy to the classiest and most classic simplicity.  Dishes of every luxury imaginable are being served, and wines decanted into precious crystal; candlelight softens the air, night-blooming flowers cast their scent all around.  There’s live music, too, a band circulating among the tables, the bright romantic tunes half-lost under a satisfied hum of voices and cutlery.

Jeena Aach takes her seat with a simper, but when they hand her the menu-pad, the light in her eyes is entirely Jyn.  She reads rapidly and her grin gets broad and unselfconscious.

“There’s four different kinds of soup!  Or – no, I want beignets and sour fruit chutney.  Or maybe the stuffed molo, mmm –“ She debates the options aloud, giving him little conspiratorial smiles; finally chooses and rattles off her order.  It’s a long, mouth-watering list, four courses and wine.  She looks him in the eye and says smugly “I told you I was famished, darling!”

Cassian orders soup, steak, salad.  Red wine for the steak, white for the salad.  Sits smiling at his partner. 

Eating with Jyn is usually a practical business, both of them chowing down vat-grown protein while they discuss a mission briefing or run through a checklist.  He enjoys her enjoyment of her food even then.  Recognises the blurred line between eagerness and alarm, in the speed with which she eats, the primal pleasure of hunger relieved.  Like him, Jyn has known too much hunger, like him she knows in her bones what a privilege it is to eat enough every day and know there will be another meal tomorrow.

But this is no healthy-but-plain Alliance canteen.  These are the freshest ingredients, prepared by highly-trained hands, seasoned carefully and subtly, presented like works of art. He’s had to eat this rich-men’s food too many times before, knows how long it can take to get used to the opulence, the ludicrous range of choices, the creaminess, sweetness, nuances of flavour.  In front of him, Jyn takes a mouthful of beignet and closes her eyes for a second, as if to hold off a peak of pleasure.  It might be a performance; or have started out as one, at least, he thinks, as she makes small murmuring sounds and smacks her lips.  But then she falls silent, only her tongue flickering for a second to lick away the tart, spiced sauce. 

Her cheeks are flushed from their afternoon swim in the sun.  Her lips move sensuously as she eats, and her eyes open again, startled and pleasured.  It’s a sight to take his own appetite away completely.

Replacing it with a hunger he can never satisfy.

He eats anyway, automatically.  A droid would probably find more savour in the meal.  But it’s good nutrition; real meat, fresh salad and vegetables, it would be criminal to waste it.  It is delicious, when he remembers to taste it.  But it isn’t what he wants to be tasting.

Cassian chews and swallows and turns his mind resolutely back to work.  _For fuck’s sake, Andor._  

He monitors the room; makes small talk and smiles on autopilot, with his hearing and peripheral vision alert to the rest of the huge space around them.  Smiles.  Hopes.  Tamps down everything else.  Then catches himself staring at Jyn’s lips as she eats.  Again.  _Professional, very professional, imbecile, stay focussed…_

Everywhere is busy and bustling and full of self-absorbed happy people.  No sign of trouble.  No sign of Pen.

At last, after Jyn has cleared her promised double helping of dessert, a final platter appears, a scarlet heart of porcelain, stacked with chocolates and petit-fours.  The waiter pours the last of their sparkling wine and leaves them contemplating the sweets.

By dint of thinking more about Jyn’s mouth than the food he’s been putting in his own, Cassian has managed to over-eat.  His gut feels bloated, and bubbly as something fermenting.  Like a demijohn of boot-hooch brewing in an unused locker.  He meets Jyn’s eye with an embarrassed half-smile.  “Go ahead.  I’m stuffed.”

She leans in a little, licks her lips tantalisingly.  Oh, she is getting so good at this.  Murmurs “I ate too much already.”

 _Bend towards her, take both her hands in your own, gaze into her eyes._ “That’s both of us, then.” Smile lovingly.  Her beautiful eyes.  Which drop, for a moment; _is she looking at his mouth? – no, down at their linked hands?_

A moment of jolted panic, has he been misinterpreting her competence, can she really handle this, him touching her, imposing himself on her constantly?  _Lighten things, quickly, remind her it isn’t real, you can do this..._  

He whispers “Do you need to go somewhere to throw up?”

She gives a tinkling laugh, pure Jeena though her eyes are still Jyn; squeezes his fingers and says “No, not that bad.  Why, do you?”

He shakes his head.  Daringly, and because it would be entirely appropriate at this moment, and in no way at all because it’s something he’s wanted to do for months, he kisses her knuckles just above one of the little scars he loves so much.  Jyn blinks and there’s a split second beat before she giggles.  He says quietly “It’s just that, it’s gonna look odd if we leave the whole plateful, after the way we’ve been stuffing ourselves.”

“You mean, the way I’ve been stuffing myself.  You’ve eaten maybe half what I had.” 

It sounds almost wifely, the mixture of affection and teasing. “You’ll be telling me next I’m too thin.”

“You are.  Ask K if you don’t believe me.  He has some very interesting statistics on the subject of the long-term effects of sub-optimal nutrition in early life.”

He chuckles.  Newly-married husband is charmed by his dear-heart’s every word.  “Why did that come up?”

“He was trying to decide whether I’m short primarily for genetic reasons or because I’m stunted.  He thinks the latter.  I think he just likes the word stunted.”

They’re still holding hands, still exchanging secret little looks, just as lovers would.  The lamplight and the scented air moving around them, the murmuring voices seeming to fall away so that they’re in a bubble of peace, together.  Her eyes, her beautiful eyes.  His dear, trusted friend.  Who he loves.

“Can you manage to eat just a few?” Cassian tears his gaze away, nods at the plate of sweets.

“Course I can.  For the rebellion.”

One last squeeze of his hands and she lets go.  She hovers over the plateful and picks out a pale chocolate heart scattered with candied petals.  Pops it between her lips and bites it in half.

Closes her eyes again for a moment. “Mmm.  That is very rich.”

She eats the other half, slowly.  Gives a tiny snort of amusement.  Licks her fingertips.

“Put one in my mouth,” he suggests in a low voice.  Because it would look right; only because it would look right.

Jyn smiles.  He watches as she selects another of the prettiest candies and brings it to his lips; and then hesitates.  Behind the held smile her eyes are suddenly shy.

He opens his mouth to her.  Takes in the brush of her fingers, their pressure making his lips ache with want; and something else that is crisp and chocolatey, unctuously soft, creamy-fruity flavours and tiny notes of an almost floral praline crunch.  It’s as subtle and perfect as Jyn herself sitting before him smiling in her uncertainty. 

Faintly, behind all the sweetness, he can taste the salt on her skin.  He closes his eyes for a second and fumbles the serviette in his lap in hope of fanning the sudden heat there. 

When he opens his eyes, Jyn is eating another chocolate.  She looks at the plate only.  Choosing her third candy and avoiding his eye.

There’s a rustle and a murmur of sound on Cassian’s left and he turns sharply, all his mind and body wrapped up in multiple subtle layers of discomfort, to find himself looking up at the team of musicians who have been wandering among the tables.  Guitar and mandolin and harp, two flutes, a singer with a set of finger-bells; and big, happy, intentionally-natural smiles all round.  A charimari band.  They’ve been playing romanzas and love songs for the last hour and now they’re here.  Oh hells.  

“A tune for your pretty lady, sir?” asks the singer.

Jyn is clapping her hands eagerly. “Yes please!” she exclaims in her brightest voice. “Play something for me!”

Cassian toys with his wine glass as they play a lilting traditional dance tune.  At least it’s buying him time to calm down.  His incipient erection will go away if he can just stop thinking about the taste of Jyn’s fingers – no, there he goes again, he has to **stop** thinking about it – and as he fights for self-control, she’s swaying gently along to the music, rolling her lean, muscular shoulders, beaming at the musicians.  Once again, a very good performance, of slight happy tipsiness this time.  He must remember to mention that in his report. 

The band finish and bow in unison, flourishing their caps.  Jyn applauds happily and he has time to think again how well she’s doing, before suddenly the singer is asking him “Is there a special song you’d like to dedicate to your lovely lady, sir?”

_Oh Force – of course, there has to be, but oh kriffing dump-sucking shavit, **what** –_

Jyn looks up from under her lashes; her lively expression quietens and she nips on her bottom lip.

Of course they would have a special song, these two.  But it was one of the many things they didn’t have time to discuss in their planning.  Aach is a conventional man, and an idiot in love; calling something ** _our song_** is just the kind of foolishness he would indulge in. 

But Jyn will have no idea what _their song_ is until he says it; and if he names something she hasn’t heard before, and it throws her of her stroke…

_The band are waiting.  Fuck it, **fuck it** , I’m supposed to be good at this.  Jyn is inspiringly good and I’m coming up empty, and –_

“Do you know ‘You are my inspiration’ by Serisette?” he says with a weak grin. 

“Good choice, sir!”

They’re playing again, and he meets Jyn’s eye and relaxes as she smiles.  A quiet smile that grows slowly and warms his heart.  Of course she knows this song; you couldn’t avoid it, seven years ago.  And seven years ago is when Caspian Aach was in his final year at the Academy, while Jeena was in her final year of High School.  So even if it isn’t **_our_** _song_ it’s the _when we were young we dreamed we’d cross the stars_ song for them.  It’s almost perfect, except –

The lyrics.

Jyn is blushing again, more and more deeply this time, as the beaming man sings and the mandolin player puts in flourishes.

“You are my inspiration,  
The sunshine of my life,  
My hope and transformation  
Whether I live or die…”

It’s all true, of course.  She is an inspiration to him.  The way she’s risen above all the dark and the fear, the years on the run, the way she’s grown, from that numb woman who mistrusted every face and voice, every hand outstretched.  The way she lifted herself up on the word hope, as a bird lifts itself and takes wing. 

The way she’s carried him with her, back into that same hope, that he’d come to think was for everyone except him.

“With every look of love  
You bring my heart alive,  
With every smile you give  
You make me wanna live.  
Live forever, forever with you,  
No-one so beautiful, so beautiful as you…”

Oh, Force, these are the most romantic words possible, and they get worse.  He’s made Jyn blush already with this song choice and now the second stanza is just impossible, she’s going to want to murder him -

“You are my life’s adventure  
And in your arms at night,  
Your galaxy’s sweet centre,  
Oh baby,  
Where everything is gonna be alright.  
With every look of love  
You bring my heart alive…”

It’s all true, and he’s never told her any of it and never can; and that image kills him, the idea of being in her arms, when all too soon tonight they’re going to have to lie down to sleep side by side in that beautiful silk-covered bed and it can never be, it can never, ever be… 

**

“With every look of love,” sings the fat little fellow in the coloured cap, tinkling his finger-chimes and tossing his purple hair “You bring my heart alive…”

The harpist plays long rippling runs, the flutes sob a sighing obbligato.  Jyn’s breath feels abnormally fast. 

“You make me wanna live, live forever,  
Forever with my beautiful.  
You are my inspiration,  
Live forever, live forever with my beautiful,  
My beautiful, my beautiful, with you…”

It’s all true; and suddenly it’s agony, knowing that for Cassian it isn’t.  Knowing that he doesn’t know, and never will.  Agony wishing she had the courage to tell him, wishing there was a scrap of hope for her to cling to, to make it seem real.  Cassian thinks she’s brave, he’s told her so many times (sometimes as praise, sometimes in furious accusation, lecturing her on her risk-taking, her reckless disregard for her own safety).  If he only knew how little courage she really has.  She can’t say _I love you_ ; even less could she ever say _I want to touch you, put my mouth on you, I want you to touch me too._  

She hasn’t the nerve to tell him anything, not even _You do inspire me, you give me hope, every day…_  

If she were to say that, it would be true, but it would come too close to the rest of the truth; and she can’t.  She just.  Can’t.

When she glances up at Cassian, with her face and what feels like her entire upper body on fire with embarrassment, he’s looking down at her, lower lip caught between his teeth unselfconsciously, eyes lost between anxiety and a performance of perfect gob-slapped happiness.  Between Aach on the surface, blissful new-made husband, and Cassian inside wondering if she can keep up this act much longer.

Krif it, she fucking well can.  He’s the one who’d been training her for the last year and she’s damned if she’s going to let him down.  But this is her first time working undercover without extensive briefing on base beforehand.  This entire cover was cooked up between the two of them in transit.  Undercover as newlyweds; and the irony hits her all over again, looking at Cassian’s haunting half-smile, and the concern in his eyes.

She takes a deep breath.  The song is winding on, sweet sappy softness about love and butterflies, sunshine and hope.  Jyn smiles at the man she’s supposed to be in love with.  At the man she knows and trusts so completely; Cassian, her comrade and her anchor, the one true place in a galaxy of flux and betrayal.  _Smile, smile at him like he’s your home._

The eyes she’s come to love so much slowly wake from their anxiety, coming back into the moment, creasing at the corners as his answering smile grows.  She lets herself lean into the warmth of him.  Lets the heat of her blush wash into her rigid spine and tight breath, relax her, make her calm and soft again, a young bride, a happy ignorant girl.  So, those feelings she can’t even let herself think about are never going to be acted upon or reciprocated?  Well, so what; there’s more love in this friendship than she’d had in her life in a decade.  Jeena Aach is a fool and an Imp; but she still has to find it in herself to play this role without hate, to find something to understand, some fraction of honest truth in this made-up woman.  Jeena knows how to love, and Jyn is a naïve beginner, but she’s learned enough to recognise the feeling. 

She trusted and loved her parents, and Saw, and her comrades in the past; trusted them unthinking as a child, and was betrayed as a child is.  She trusts Cassian as an adult, knowingly; taking that risk, in faith and hope.  Knowing he trusts her too.  It’s a kind of love, and there’s a strength in that, bright as a sun.

And bright as mirrors in that sun they are smiling at one another.

_Be careful, back off, Jyn, you’re blurring the boundaries and you’re going to burn yourself – but –_

_His beautiful smile, it’s not an Aach smile at all it’s a shy man’s smile and it’s Cassian and I just want the galaxy to treat him well…_

When he reaches a cautious hand across the table to her, reminding her again with a silent flicker that they have discussed this, that newly-weds touch all the time and so they must touch and it’s okay to, she lays her own hand on his immediately.  Brushes her fingers across his knuckles and then slips them round to clasp his hand and hold it tight.  He squeezes her hand, catches it between both his.  Such a strong grip, lending her his determination.  As always; his commitment has always been quick and total, inspirational.  _No wonder he’s a top recruiter, he makes me feel like the most vital person in the world to him when he does this._

She presses back, letting herself enjoy the rough warmth and the steadiness of his hands holding hers.  Hope cannot but be mutual, with hands as brave and a heart as selfless as this to sustain it.

And the music has stopped.

Cassian blinks, coming to himself as if with a shock.  Force, he’s so good at this, you’d think he really was a man deep in love and losing himself in his lover.  He tears his eyes from hers with a show of reluctance she can only aspire to.  Lets go with one hand even as the other presses hers tightly; and he reaches into a pocket, pulls out a couple of cash bills to tip the band.  She barely heard the last verses of ‘You are my inspiration’, but clearly they finished the song.  People at neighbouring tables are smiling and applauding.

Jyn drains the last of her wine hurriedly and lets go of Cassian’s hand to join in the clapping.  “Lovely, that was lovely, thank you!” she twitters.  Hopefully sounding a tad drunk; hopefully sounding as giddy and silly as Jeena.  Happy ignorant Jeena, whose husband loves her back.

If the music had gone on, she very easily could have done so, too; have gone on gazing into Cassian’s eyes, imagining this was real.  Clasping his hand, melting slowly in the certainty of his nearness.  Allowing herself to feel all of it.  As if it were real.

_If most of this were real you’d hate yourself, idiot.  Imagine really coming to stay somewhere like this.  This place where meals include heart-shaped candy and three kinds of wine, and a six-piece band, and the majority of the staff are droids for the convenience, never mind the jobless sentients living in fear just outside the perimeter.  Who built this Old Harbour that runs boat trips, then?  If it’s that ruin we saw, then I bet it was an indigenous settlement once.  Before Love’s Bright Dream; before a silver bay became The Silver Bay…_

If she and Cassian had really just got married, if they were lucky they’d have a 48-hour period of leave together.  If they were _really_ lucky, they’d get the chance to spend that time planet-side.   Somewhere among free people, somewhere with fresh food and fresh air.   Stay in some rent-rooms place; go for walks, eat together and sleep in one another’s arms.  Maybe even swim, as they did today, as they did back on Yavin in that sinkhole with the jungle hanging in through the roof.  And she could enjoy all of that, if it were real.  Could even love it.

But since she does love him, she’ll banish that daydream.  It’s irrelevant.  Jyn has gone without before, it’s no hardship to her, not really.  To cause Cassian any pain or embarrassment would grieve her far worse than something as ordinary as self-denial.

Mercifully it seems his tip was generous enough to get rid of the band.  She doesn’t need any more music right now.  Or anyone else saying _You are my inspiration_.  He is, he is.

He gave her hope, when no-one had so much as spoken the word near her in years.  Said the word proudly and plainly and in the face of her cynicism.  She owes it to him to carry that hope as strongly as he’s ever done.  And that’s worth far more than some child’s fantasy about falling in love and getting married and living happily ever after.

The musicians have moved on to the next table.  Time to go.  Cassian helps her up, as if she’s incapable of drawing her own chair back.  But of course, yes; she’s faking tipsy, so fair enough.  His hand comes to rest on her upper back, where her skin is bare. 

_We have to touch, we have to touch._

She slides under his arm, against his side.  Heart pounding.  Heartburn threatening.  _Fuck, those chocolates were good.  Far too rich, but good._

They stroll down the wide staircase, under the cascades of lights.  His body feels slim and taut next to hers, a quiet constant tension under the relaxed gait.  Always still Cassian, no matter the act of sweetness and romance; always the soldier, always her captain and her comrade.  All this time, as he’s laughed and smiled and made eyes at her, she’s been aware of the tiny signs as he kept tabs on their surroundings and monitored the people and droids in the vicinity, and watched out for his blasted contact to show up.

_Where the hells is this dump-shavit Cedrier?  Lt-Colonel Cold-feet and his little wifey?  Put your fucking comm on if you’re really okay and give us a rendezvous, you twizzle-headed nerf!_

She can feel the warmth of Cassian’s skin through the cotton of his evening shirt; and the comforting tell-tale shape of a small vibro-blade holstered against his ribs.  He can probably feel her weapon too, his arm is round her waist and she knows the handle will be right against the side of his wrist. 

They walk slowly back to their suite, keeping watch all the time.

Fireflies wink on and off in the gardens and the air smells of night-blooming flowers.  Above the entrance to their cabin a single lantern glows and casts patterned light and shadows round the doorway.  They both stop for a moment, scanning for any changes, checking out the deeper shadows quickly. 

It’s almost midnight; nearly ten planetary hours since they arrived.  She’s been undercover for longer than this, hells, in the days after Saw left her she had to live under a false name for years at a time; and she was seldom as nervous as she’s been since they got here.

It’s the closeness.  The _pretend_ closeness; the pretending her dearest dream is just another tool.  It’s simply jarring.  Most roles, in the past, she’s dropped into them and played her part, and known it would be easy to drop out at the end of the day because they weren’t her.  But this time, there’s that flaw.  There’s a crack in the carapace, a place where the truth comes in. 

And inside this cabin is a double bed, to be shared with the man she is in love with. A  wedding night that is nothing of the kind.  A truth that should be false, in the middle of the lies told for truth’s sake.

They both look back, together, at the main building where it rises like a lit sail-barge above the foliage.  It gleams with twinkling lights, and a drift of music and laughter comes back to Jyn’s ears.  She thinks of the Massassi temples rising out of a real jungle, of their grubby crumbling stone, all lichens and damp patches and flaking carvings.  That was a home, for a time; this isn’t even a good dream.

In a low voice she says “Is it childish of me to want so much to blow some of this pretty place into the sky?”

Cassian squeezes her waist. “No.”  Silently he presses her hand to his concealed knife.   _That’s what we’re here for_ , his gesture says; _we are part of the fight_.

“I know it’s ridiculous to hold buildings responsible for the people who built them.  But the longer I spend here, the dirtier I feel.  I just want to smash something…”

“Something? Not someone?”

Jyn shakes her head slowly. “I know the architecture’s just stones and the people here are genuine Imps.  But they’re all just fools in love.  Most of them don’t know they’re blind.  Like your man and his wife, seeing nothing wrong with a holiday somewhere like this, when he’s been an Alliance agent for ten years.  Like Caspian and Jeena.” Like me, she adds in her mind, but not aloud.  Never, never aloud.

She looks across at Cassian just in time to see him swallow in the moonlight.  He reaches out and touches the door.  “Come on, let’s brave K’s latest conversational efforts, shall we?”

The lights come on as they walk in.  K-2 is sitting in the luggage alcove, plugged in and semi-powered-down.  His optical sensors blink and he straightens and says with acerbic cheerfulness “Good evening, I trust you had a pleasant evening?  I’ve prepared a detailed report on my findings and uploaded it onto both your data pads.  Nothing at all has happened here for the remainder of the evening.  It’s very uninteresting.”

Cassian picks up the comm from the console table. “Did you hear anything from -?”

“Nothing.  Your contact remains resolutely out-of-contact.” 

“Shit,” Jyn says. “This is getting to be a drag.”

“As I mentioned.  It’s boring.”

“It’s more than boring, it’s worrying.”  Cassian puts down the comm again. “We need to work on a back-up plan.  If it turns out Pen’s already been taken, or he’s been unable to get here, we’ll have limited time before our cover’s blown.”

For the first time, he sounds really tense.  She wonders what it is that’s getting to him.  He never usually lets his emotions show.  “We should give it a full day-cycle,” she suggests. “It could just be an oversight.  If they’re, I dunno, space-lagged or something.”

To her surprise, K instantly agrees.  “You have often remarked that Pen Cedrier is not the most organised individual, and his failure to match your own parameters of efficiency has been consistent over time.  Jyn is inferring a logical possibility.  The odds of a successful outcome have not altered significantly over the course of this afternoon and evening.  I’ll continue to monitor comms and will develop and analyse potential back-up plans aurek, besh and cresh through thesh.  Plus further instances if as is likely more than 34 options are needed.”

 _Logical_ is possibly his biggest compliment, and she’s about to say _Thank you, K_ , when he goes on brightly “And now the two of you need to go to sleep.  In your sleeping space.  I trust the bed will be comfortable.  _I’m_ going back to my _cupboard_.” 

Nothing seems to have changed in the suite; after all, K and his acid tongue have been here all evening keeping guard.  Their two duffels still lie side by side on the shelf above the droid as he settles down again inside the closet.  Their two half-empty water bottles are still standing on the low console table.  The snack tray is still untouched. 

Oh no, there is one change; a gigantic fruit basket on the console table.  Proof of the success of K’s mission-within-a-mission.  He’s probably ordered tickets for the whale-show, too.

Without looking at Cassian again Jyn goes under the archway into the bedroom.  Their two sets of new sleep clothes are neatly folded where she set them ten hours ago, on opposite sides of the bed.

At the very least, they must both sleep, and it’s risky not to share the bed.  They’ve slept close to one another before, on cold durasteel decks or hard bare ground. 

She takes a deep breath.  The sooner the awkward conversation begins, the sooner it will be over.

It is awkward, too; as is the process of getting ready for bed which follows.  And then finally, there they are, lying two feet apart in their agreed spaces. 

The rose-pink silk sheets caress every inch of bare skin, and with the shutters drawn, the only sound in the room is breathing.  Cassian has put his comm on the nightstand.  He’s wearing nothing but a pair of cotton sleep pants.  He lies down flat, folding his hands across the hollow of his belly, just under the edge of his ribcage, and is instantly motionless.

The last time she saw him lie so utterly still, he was on a hover-bed in med-bay, with bacta and bandages strapped about him and tubes running into his body.  She’d woken in the next bed and known him alive, and for the first time had seen beyond the next chance and the next; right out beyond them, into a future.

Jyn dims the lighting to dark, pulls the sensuous sheet up to cover herself and turns on her side, with her back towards him.

She hates having her back to Cassian.  It feels all wrong.  But the idea of rolling over in this bed, as if she expects to watch him now in his one vulnerability, would be unfathomably intrusive.  She stays on her side, flexing her hands and uncurling them again.

His breathing is slow and even behind her in the darkness.  He’s really fallen asleep, already.  She holds onto the sound as to a fuel-line in space. 

They’ve slept side by side before and this is nothing different.  If it’s nothing different to Cassian, sleeping peacefully at her back, then it’s nothing different to her either.

_Just keep saying that to yourself, Jyn.  Just keep on until you sleep._

However long it takes.

**

At some point in the night he’s turned over onto his stomach.  Cassian wakes with his face smooshed into the cloud-soft pillows and his feet hanging off the end of the mattress.  He must have been on his front for at least half an hour; his back is blissfully pain-free, kink-free, not even a tinge of stiffness.  In front of him, his right hand lies outstretched, like a bony starfish in the bed, and just beyond it is the small tight curve of Jyn, curled up in her characteristic ball, her back to him.  Her top has rucked up a little to leave a gap above her waistband.  The faint ridges of her spine are exposed for several inches; the vertebrae look almost dainty though he knows she has bones like durasteel. 

She’s so close he could reach out and stroke her.  There’s morning light on her, soft across her skin, untidy in her hair.  The top sheet is folded round her bare legs.  Her breathing is slow, shallow, almost inaudible.  She looks like a fallen child.

Very carefully he lifts himself up on his elbows.  Jyn doesn’t move.  He hold still, looking across at her, waiting for some sign that she’s awake and alert.  She’s normally a light sleeper, after all, they both are, and this is an alien environment. 

Alien and alienating.

But he’s slept soundly, here beside her. 

His slow movement is dipping the mattress now, pulling the under-sheet, but she doesn’t react.  It’s the first time he’s watched her sleeping in almost a year; since he came-to after surgery and found her curled up next to him in the Yavin 4 med-bay.  The scars and the shadows have gone from her face now, and her cheeks have filled-out a little in the last year.

But in sleep, her familiar face is softer than he could have believed possible.  Soft, and very young.  She lies with her hands bunched loosely together, fingers enfolded and lax, like a half-open flower.  In each slow out-breath a hangnail on her right thumb shifts minutely in the air.  Nothing else stirs.

He knows with the certainty of her faith in him that she’s deeply asleep.  The same trust in him, that he has in her. 

The room is silent and full of the brightness of sunlight kept out by closed shutters. 

What would it really be like, to wake up next to Jyn as a lover?  Would she curl into his arms the way now she curls away? 

Could he ever deserve still more of her trust? 

 _Don’t even think about it.  Imbecile._  

He pulls back quietly, shifts across the mattress and swings his legs off, pushing up into a sitting position.  A good night’s sleep is a blessing and unanswerable questions like these are better ignored; and Jyn has the right to go on sleeping in safety here, with someone she trusts to watch over her.

“Mmmmph,” says Jyn under her breath, and opens her eyes.  For a moment, sleep-filled and innocent; then with a single blink she’s wide awake. 

She rolls onto her back and stares up at Cassian as though transfixed.  He wishes he’d put a shirt on, from her expression you’d think she was counting his ribs.   Then she turns her head and says softly “Cassian.  The comm.”

The comm, on the night-stand; a light blinking.  A message.

He grabs it up, sitting on the bed again as he switches the tiny screen on to read the incoming text.  Jyn moves up beside him and crouches close by, reading over his shoulder.

“Main buffet breakfast at nine; table 201, on right behind bouquet of Lothal moonflowers.”

He can feel her breath on his bare skin, but for a moment neither of them reacts to how close they are.  This is it.  Contact established.

Jyn’s hand is resting on his shoulder, momentarily unselfconscious.  “Make-or-break time.  Is it him, do you think?”

Cassian nods.  “It’s the right sort of tone.  He tries to be clipped.  And the flowers.  An indirect reference to code words.  He doesn’t have a K to do signal scrambling for him and he’s concerned about being tapped.”  He picks up his chrono. “We’ve got half an hour.  Quick five in the sonic?”

The words are barely out of his mouth before he feels himself flush with shock.  _Fuuuck, no…_

He stutters “I mean – I’m sorry, I –“

Jyn has already pulled back her hand, flinching from his skin as though it burned her.  “Yeah,” she says hurriedly. “Fresher.  After you.”

She’s crimson and he can only imagine his own face looks the same. _Fuck fuck fuck that came out so wrong._

And then, of course, it isn’t a sonic anyway.  This place is too luxurious for such practical things.  He showers as fast as he can, emerges still wet to apologise again while grabbing up clothes and fumbling to keep a towel round himself.  Jyn darts past him into the ‘fresher with her eyes actually averted.

Which is undeniable evidence.  She doesn’t want to look at him flailing around dripping and half-naked.  Who would after all?  _So this is good.  It’s **good**.  You need to get on game, Andor.  The mission is on.  No more getting distracted._

He pulls on the same casual cottons as yesterday; looks away quickly when Jyn comes into the room already dressed, with affectingly damp tendrils of hair escaping from a hasty bun.  _Focus. **Focus.**   No more distractions._

This is his world. “K, we’ve got a meet.  I’d like you to accompany us.”

There’s a faint hiss of servos, and K appears at the bedroom door, his yellow head cocked on one side. 

“Oh good,” he says badly.

Time to get this mission on track. “The two of you go up to the buffet – K, will you carry a tray for Jyn?  That should look convincing.  You’ll be on the upper level so you can scope out the place while I go in and verify the contact.  Keep comms on and your eyes open.  Once I know it’s definitely Pen and he isn’t being followed or bugged, you’ll join us and we’ll run the plan by him and finalise details.  Then the two of you will need to go and set up a diversion.”

This is the stuff he’s good at.  Calm, practical, making quick decisions.  No emotions.  Working with his team, deploying their abilities where they can best be used. “Take both spare blasters, K; your thoracic storage should be big enough.  One each.  Use only if strictly necessary.  If Pen’s been compromised, get yourselves out, steal a speeder, get back to the ship.  I’ll neutralise any trailing ends and make contact when I’m safe.”

Jyn pulls a face for a moment.  Then her eyes go calm and professional.  “How’s your marksmanship these days, K?” she says good-humouredly.

“Visual acuity and fine motor control are both good.  This is a high-end model after all.  I anticipate above-average target hit rates.” Kay opens the wide document tray in his chest plate, lays both the weapons in it, tucking them into the data-pad slots. “I appreciate the blaster, Cassian.”

“Don’t wanna lose either of you.”

“And you’re not going to,” Jyn says, watching him as he straps on his new slim-line Blas-tech and the small knife, and shrugs his shirt over them. “We’ve been on worse beaches than this one, Captain.”

She moves past him towards the clothes-press, and without thinking he reaches out to touch her arm.  The memories meet and freeze him and when he raises his eyes to hers, she’s staring.  Almost a year ago.  A worse beach than this one, and they made it off alive and home.

 _Thank you_ , he wants to say.  But does not. 

Their fingers brush, and tangle fleetingly.

“I have an excellent list of potential choices for explosive distractions,” K says from the door into the main room. “I look forward to using some of them.”

Jyn’s face relaxes into her normal quiet smile.  She lets go of Cassian’s hand.  Picks up her clothes from yesterday, the neat short shorts and open-backed top. “Come on then, target practice, let’s go scope out the options.”

Mission on.


End file.
